thesis in legal writing

Think of yourself as a member of a jury, listening to a lawyer who is presenting an opening argument. You'll want to know very soon whether the lawyer believes the accused to be guilty or not guilty, and how the lawyer plans to convince you. Readers of academic essays are like jury members: before they have read too far, they want to know what the essay argues as well as how the writer plans to make the argument. After reading your thesis statement, the reader should think, "This essay is going to try to convince me of something. I'm not convinced yet, but I'm interested to see how I might be."

An effective thesis cannot be answered with a simple "yes" or "no." A thesis is not a topic; nor is it a fact; nor is it an opinion. "Reasons for the fall of communism" is a topic. "Communism collapsed in Eastern Europe" is a fact known by educated people. "The fall of communism is the best thing that ever happened in Europe" is an opinion. (Superlatives like "the best" almost always lead to trouble. It's impossible to weigh every "thing" that ever happened in Europe. And what about the fall of Hitler? Couldn't that be "the best thing"?)

A good thesis has two parts. It should tell what you plan to argue, and it should "telegraph" how you plan to argue—that is, what particular support for your claim is going where in your essay.

Steps in Constructing a Thesis

First, analyze your primary sources.  Look for tension, interest, ambiguity, controversy, and/or complication. Does the author contradict himself or herself? Is a point made and later reversed? What are the deeper implications of the author's argument? Figuring out the why to one or more of these questions, or to related questions, will put you on the path to developing a working thesis. (Without the why, you probably have only come up with an observation—that there are, for instance, many different metaphors in such-and-such a poem—which is not a thesis.)

Once you have a working thesis, write it down.  There is nothing as frustrating as hitting on a great idea for a thesis, then forgetting it when you lose concentration. And by writing down your thesis you will be forced to think of it clearly, logically, and concisely. You probably will not be able to write out a final-draft version of your thesis the first time you try, but you'll get yourself on the right track by writing down what you have.

Keep your thesis prominent in your introduction.  A good, standard place for your thesis statement is at the end of an introductory paragraph, especially in shorter (5-15 page) essays. Readers are used to finding theses there, so they automatically pay more attention when they read the last sentence of your introduction. Although this is not required in all academic essays, it is a good rule of thumb.

Anticipate the counterarguments.  Once you have a working thesis, you should think about what might be said against it. This will help you to refine your thesis, and it will also make you think of the arguments that you'll need to refute later on in your essay. (Every argument has a counterargument. If yours doesn't, then it's not an argument—it may be a fact, or an opinion, but it is not an argument.)

This statement is on its way to being a thesis. However, it is too easy to imagine possible counterarguments. For example, a political observer might believe that Dukakis lost because he suffered from a "soft-on-crime" image. If you complicate your thesis by anticipating the counterargument, you'll strengthen your argument, as shown in the sentence below.

Some Caveats and Some Examples

A thesis is never a question.  Readers of academic essays expect to have questions discussed, explored, or even answered. A question ("Why did communism collapse in Eastern Europe?") is not an argument, and without an argument, a thesis is dead in the water.

A thesis is never a list.  "For political, economic, social and cultural reasons, communism collapsed in Eastern Europe" does a good job of "telegraphing" the reader what to expect in the essay—a section about political reasons, a section about economic reasons, a section about social reasons, and a section about cultural reasons. However, political, economic, social and cultural reasons are pretty much the only possible reasons why communism could collapse. This sentence lacks tension and doesn't advance an argument. Everyone knows that politics, economics, and culture are important.

A thesis should never be vague, combative or confrontational.  An ineffective thesis would be, "Communism collapsed in Eastern Europe because communism is evil." This is hard to argue (evil from whose perspective? what does evil mean?) and it is likely to mark you as moralistic and judgmental rather than rational and thorough. It also may spark a defensive reaction from readers sympathetic to communism. If readers strongly disagree with you right off the bat, they may stop reading.

An effective thesis has a definable, arguable claim.  "While cultural forces contributed to the collapse of communism in Eastern Europe, the disintegration of economies played the key role in driving its decline" is an effective thesis sentence that "telegraphs," so that the reader expects the essay to have a section about cultural forces and another about the disintegration of economies. This thesis makes a definite, arguable claim: that the disintegration of economies played a more important role than cultural forces in defeating communism in Eastern Europe. The reader would react to this statement by thinking, "Perhaps what the author says is true, but I am not convinced. I want to read further to see how the author argues this claim."

A thesis should be as clear and specific as possible.  Avoid overused, general terms and abstractions. For example, "Communism collapsed in Eastern Europe because of the ruling elite's inability to address the economic concerns of the people" is more powerful than "Communism collapsed due to societal discontent."

Copyright 1999, Maxine Rodburg and The Tutors of the Writing Center at Harvard University

Legal Dissertation: Research and Writing Guide

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About This Page

Choosing a topic can be one of the most challenging aspects of writing an extensive paper. This page has resources to help you find topics and inspiration, before you get started on the in-depth research process.

Related Guides

Citation and Writing Resources

Legal Research Tutorials

Secondary Sources for Legal Research

Methods of Finding Cases

Methods of Finding Statutes

Current Awareness and Alerting Resources

Compiling State Legislative Histories

Locating International and Foreign Law Journals

This guide contains resources to help students researching and writing a legal dissertation or other upper-level writing project. Some of the resources in this guide are directed at researching and writing in general, not specifically on legal topics, but the strategies and tips can still be applied.

The Law Library maintains a number of other guides on related skills and topics that may be of interest:

The Wells Library also maintains guides. A few that may be helpful for managing research can be found here:

Choosing a Topic

This video discusses tips and strategies for choosing a dissertation topic.

Note: this video is not specific to legal dissertation topics, but it may still be of interest as an overview generally.

The Bloomberg/BNA publication United States Law Week can be a helpful resource for tracking down the major legal stories of the day.  Log into Bloomberg Law, in the big search box, start typing United States Law Week and the title will appear in the drop down menu beneath the box. This publication provides coverage of top legal news stories, and in-depth "insight" features.

If you have a general idea of the area of law you wish to write about, check out the Practice Centers on Bloomberg. From the homepage, click the Browse link in the top left-hand corner. Then select Practice Centers and look for your area of law. Practice Centers are helpful because they gather cases, statutes, administrative proceedings, news, and more on the selected legal area.

Bloomberg has other news sources available as well. From the homepage, click the Browse link in the top left-hand corner. Then select News and Analysis, then select News or Analysis, and browse the available topics.

If you know what area of law you'd like to write about, you may find the Browse Topics feature in Lexis Advance helpful for narrowing down your topic. 

Log into Lexis Advance, click the Browse Topics tab, and select a topic.  If you don't see your topic listed, try using the provided search bar to see whether your topic is categorized as a sub-topic within this list. 

Once you click on a topic, a box pops up with several options.  If you click on Get Topic Document, you'll see results listed in a number of categories, including Cases, Legislation, and more.  The News and Legal News categories at the right end of the list may help you identify current developments of interest for your note.  Don't forget about the filtering options on the left that will allow you to search within your results, narrow your jurisdiction, and more.

Similar to Lexis Advance, Westlaw Edge has a Topics tab that may be helpful if you know what area of law you'd like to write about.

Log onto Westlaw Edge, and click on the Topics tab.  This time, you won't be able to search within this list, so if you're area is not listed, you should either run a regular search from the main search bar at the top or try out some of the topics listed under this tab - once you click on a topic, you can search within its contents.

What is great about the Topics in Westlaw Edge is the Practitioner Insights page you access by clicking on a topic.  This is an information portal that allows you quick access to cases, legislation, top news, and more on your selected topic.

In United States federal courts, a circuit split occurs whenever two or more circuit courts of appeals issue conflicting rulings on the same legal question. Circuit splits are ripe for legal analysis and commentary because they present a situation in which federal law is being applied in different ways in different parts of the country, even if the underlying litigants themselves are otherwise similarly situated. The Supreme Court also frequently accepts cases on appeal that involve these types of conflicted rulings from various sister circuits.

To find a circuit split on a topic of interest to you, try searching on Lexis and Westlaw using this method:

in the search box, enter the following: (circuit or court w/s split) AND [insert terms or phrases to narrow the search]

You can also browse for circuit splits on Bloomberg. On the Bloomberg homepage, in the "Law School Success" box, Circuit Splits Charts appear listed under Secondary Sources.

Other sources for circuit splits are American Law Reports (ALR) and American Jurisprudence (AmJur). These publications provide summaries of the law, point out circuit splits, and provide references for further research.

"Blawgs" or law-related blogs are often written by scholars or practitioners in the legal field.  Ordinarily covering current events and developments in law, these posts can provide inspiration for note topics.  To help you find blawgs on a specific topic, consider perusing the ABA's Blawg Directory or Justia's Blawg Search .

Research Methodology

Types of research methodologies.

There are different types of research methodologies. Methodology refers to the strategy employed in conducting research. The following methodologies are some of the most commonly used in legal and social science research.

Doctrinal legal research methodology, also called "black letter" methodology, focuses on the letter of the law rather than the law in action. Using this method, a researcher composes a descriptive and detailed analysis of legal rules found in primary sources (cases, statutes, or regulations). The purpose of this method is to gather, organize, and describe the law; provide commentary on the sources used; then, identify and describe the underlying theme or system and how each source of law is connected.

Doctrinal methodology is good for areas of law that are largely black letter law, such as contract or property law. Under this approach, the researcher conducts a critical, qualitative analysis of legal materials to support a hypothesis. The researcher must identify specific legal rules, then discuss the legal meaning of the rule, its underlying principles, and decision-making under the rule (whether cases interpreting the rule fit together in a coherent system or not). The researcher must also identify ambiguities and criticisms of the law, and offer solutions. Sources of data in doctrinal research include the rule itself, cases generated under the rule, legislative history where applicable, and commentaries and literature on the rule.

This approach is beneficial by providing a solid structure for crafting a thesis, organizing the paper, and enabling a thorough definition and explanation of the rule. The drawbacks of this approach are that it may be too formalistic, and may lead to oversimplifying the legal doctrine.

Comparative

Comparative legal research methodology involves critical analysis of different bodies of law to examine how the outcome of a legal issue could be different under each set of laws. Comparisons could be made between different jurisdictions, such as comparing analysis of a legal issue under American law and the laws of another country, or researchers may conduct historical comparisons.

When using a comparative approach be sure to define the reasons for choosing this approach, and identify the benefits of comparing laws from different jurisdictions or time periods, such as finding common ground or determining best practices and solutions. The comparative method can be used by a researcher to better understand their home jurisdiction by analyzing how other jurisdictions handle the same issue. This method can also be used as a critical analytical tool to distinguish particular features of a law. The drawback of this method is that it can be difficult to find material from other jurisdictions. Also, researchers should be sure that the comparisons are relevant to the thesis and not just used for description.

This type of research uses data analysis to study legal systems. A detailed guide on empirical methods can be found here . The process of empirical research involves four steps: design the project, collect and code the data, analyze the data, determine best method of presenting the results. The first step, designing the project, is when researchers define their hypothesis and concepts in concrete terms that can be observed. Next, researchers must collect and code the data by determining the possible sources of information and available collection methods, and then putting the data into a format that can be analyzed. When researchers analyze the data, they are comparing the data to their hypothesis. If the overlap between the two is significant, then their hypothesis is confirmed, but if there is little to no overlap, then their hypothesis is incorrect. Analysis involves summarizing the data and drawing inferences. There are two types of statistical inference in empirical research, descriptive and causal. Descriptive inference is close to summary, but the researcher uses the known data from the sample to draw conclusions about the whole population. Causal inference is the difference between two descriptive inferences.

Two main types of empirical legal research are qualitative and quantitative.

Quantitative, or numerical, empirical legal research involves taking information about cases and courts, translating that information into numbers, and then analyzing those numbers with statistical tools.

Qualitative, or non-numerical, empirical legal research involves extracting  information from the text of court documents, then interpreting and organizing the text into categories, and using that information to identify patterns.

Drafting The Methodology Section

This is the part of your paper that describes the research methodology, or methodologies if you used more than one. This section will contain a detailed description of how the research was conducted and why it was conducted in that way. First, draft an outline of what you must include in this section and gather the information needed.

Generally, a methodology section will contain the following:

• Statement of research objectives
• Reasons for the research methodology used
• Description and rationale of the data collection tools, sampling techniques, and data sources used, including a description of how the data collection tools were administered
• Discussion of the limitations
• Discussion of the data analysis tools used

Be sure that you have clearly defined the reasoning behind the chosen methodology and sources.

• Legal Reasoning, Research, and Writing for International Graduate Students Nadia E. Nedzel Aspen (2004) A guide to American legal research and the federal system, written for international students. Includes information on the research process, and tips for writing. Located in the Law Library, 3rd Floor: KF 240 .N43 2004.
• Methodologies of Legal Research: Which Kind of Method for What Kind of Discipline? Mark van Hoecke Oxford (2013) This book examines different methods of legal research including doctrinal, comparative, and interdisciplinary. Located at Lilly Law Library, Indianapolis, 2nd Floor: K 235 .M476 2013. IU students may request item via IUCAT.
• An Introduction to Empirical Legal Research Lee Epstein and Andrew D. Martin Oxford University Press (2014) This book includes information on designing research, collecting and coding data, analyzing data, and drafting the final paper. Located at Lilly Law Library, Indianapolis, 2nd Floor: K 85 .E678 2014. IU students may request item via IUCAT.
• Emplirical Legal Studies Blog The ELS blog was created by several law professors, and focuses on using empirical methods in legal research, theory, and scholarship. Search or browse the blog to find entries on methodology, data sources, software, and other tips and techniques.

Literature Review

The literature review provides an examination of existing pieces of research, and serves as a foundation for further research. It allows the researcher to critically evaluate existing scholarship and research practices, and puts the new thesis in context. When conducting a literature review, one should consider the following: who are the leading scholars in the subject area; what has been published on the subject; what factors or subtopics have these scholars identified as important for further examination; what research methods have others used; what were the pros and cons of using those methods; what other theories have been explored.

The literature review should include a description of coverage. The researcher should describe what material was selected and why, and how those selections are relevant to the thesis. Discuss what has been written on the topic and where the thesis fits in the context of existing scholarship. The researcher should evaluate the sources and methodologies used by other researchers, and describe how the thesis different.

The following video gives an overview of conducting a literature review.

Note: this video is not specific to legal literature, however it may be helpful as a general overview.

Not sure where to start? Here are a few suggestions for digging into sources once you have selected a topic.

Research Guides

Research guides are discovery tools, or gateways of information. They pull together lists of sources on a topic. Some guides even offer brief overviews and additional research steps specifically for that topic. Many law libraries offer guides on a variety of subjects. You can locate guides by visiting library websites, such as this Library's site , the Law Library of Congress , or other schools like Georgetown . Some organizations also compile research guides, such as the American Society of International Law . Utilizing a research guide on your topic to generate an introductory source list can save you valuable time.

Secondary Sources

It is often a good idea to begin research with secondary sources. These resources summarize, explain, and analyze the law. They also provide references to primary sources and other secondary sources. This saves you time and effort, and can help you quickly identify major themes under your topic and help you place your thesis in context.

Encyclopedias provide broad coverage of all areas of the law, but do not go in-depth on narrow topics, or discuss differences by jurisdiction, or  include all of the pertinent cases. American Jurisprudence ( AmJur ) and Corpus Juris Secundum ( CJS ) have nationwide coverage, while the Indiana Law Encyclopedia focuses on Indiana state law. A number of other states also have their own state-specific encyclopedias.

American Law Reports ( ALR ) are annotations that synopsize various cases on narrow legal topics. Each annotation covers a different topic, and provides a leading or typical case on the topic, plus cases from different jurisdictions that follow different rules, or cases where different facts applying the same rule led to different outcomes. The annotations also refer to other secondary sources.  

Legal periodicals include several different types of publications such as law reviews from academic institutions or organizations, bar journals, and commercial journals/newspapers/newsletters. Legal periodicals feature articles that describe the current state of the law and often explore underlying policies. They also critique laws, court decisions, and policies, and often advocate for changes. Articles also discuss emerging issues and notify the profession of new developments. Law reviews can be useful for in-depth coverage on narrow topics, and references to primary and other secondary sources. However, content can become outdated and researchers must be mindful of biases in articles. 

Treatises/Hornbooks/Practice Guides are a type of secondary source that provides comprehensive coverage of a legal subject. It could be broad, such as a treatise covering all of contract law, or very narrow such as a treatise focused only on search and seizure cases. These sources are good when you have some general background on the topic, but you need more in-depth coverage of the legal rules and policies. Treatises are generally well organized, and provide you with finding aids (index, table of contents, etc.) and extensive footnotes or endnotes that will lead you to primary sources like cases, statutes, and regulations. They may also include appendices with supporting material like forms. However, treatises may not be updated as frequently as other sources and may not cover your specific issue or jurisdiction.

Citation and Writing Style

• Legal Writing in Plain English Bryan A. Garner University of Chicago Press, 2001. Call # KF 250 .G373 2001 Location: Law Library, 3rd Floor Provides lawyers, judges, paralegals, law students, and legal scholars with sound advice and practical tools for improving their written work. The leading guide to clear writing in the field, this book offers valuable insights into the writing process: how to organize ideas, create and refine prose, and improve editing skills. This guide uses real-life writing samples that Garner has gathered through decades of teaching experience. Includes sets of basic, intermediate, and advanced exercises in each section.
• The Elements of Legal Style Bryan A. Garner Oxford University Press, 2002. Call # KF 250 .G37 2002 Location: Law Library, 1st Floor, Reference This book explains the full range of what legal writers need to know: mechanics, word choice, structure, and rhetoric, as well as all the special conventions that legal writers should follow in using headings, defined terms, quotations, and many other devices. Garner also provides examples from highly regarded legal writers, including Oliver Wendell Holmes, Clarence Darrow, Frank Easterbrook, and Antonin Scalia.
• Grammarly Blog Blog featuring helpful information about quirks of the English language, for example when to use "affect" or "effect" and other tips. Use the search feature to locate an article relevant to your grammar query.
• Plain English for Lawyers Richard C. Wydick Carolina Academic Press, 2005. Call # KF 250 .W9 2005 Location: Law Library, 3rd Floor Award-winning book that contains guidance to improve the writing of lawyers and law students and to promote the modern trend toward a clear, plain style of legal writing. Includes exercises at the end of each chapter.
• The Chicago Manual of Style University of Chicago Press, 2010. Call # Z 253 .U69 2010 Location: Law Library, 2nd Floor While not addressing legal writing specifically, The Chicago Manual of Style is one of the most widely used and respected style guides in the United States. It focuses on American English and deals with aspects of editorial practice, including grammar and usage, as well as document preparation and formatting.
• The Chicago Manual of Style (Online) Bryan A. Garner and William S. Strong The University of Chicago Press, 2017. Online edition: use the link above to view record in IUCAT, then click the Access link (for IU students only).
• The Bluebook Compiled by the editors of the Columbia Law Review, the Harvard Law Review, the University of Pennsylvania Law Review, and the Yale Law Journal. Harvard Law Review Association, 2015. Call # KF245 .B58 2015 Location: Law Library, 1st Floor, Circulation Desk The Bluebook: A Uniform System of Citation is a style guide that prescribes the most widely used legal citation system in the United States. The Bluebook is taught and used at a majority of U.S. law schools, law reviews and journals, and used in a majority of U.S. federal courts.
• User's Guide to the Bluebook Alan L. Dworsky William S. Hein & Co., Inc., 2015. Call # KF 245 .D853 2015 Location: Law Library, Circulation Desk "This User's Guide is written for practitioners (law students, law clerks, lawyers, legal secretaries and paralegals), and is designed to make the task of mastering citation form as easy and painless as possible. To help alleviate the obstacles faced when using proper citation form, this text is set up as a how-to manual with a step-by-step approach to learning the basic skills of citation and includes the numbers of the relevant Bluebook rules under most chapter subheadings for easy reference when more information is needed"--Provided by the publisher.
• Legal Citation in a Nutshell Larry L. Teply West Academic Publishing, 2016. Call # KF 245 .T47 2016 Location: Law Library, 1st Floor, Circulation Desk This book is designed to ease the task of learning legal citation. It initially focuses on conventions that underlie all accepted forms and systems of legal citation. Building on that understanding and an explanation of the “process” of using citations in legal writing, the book then discusses and illustrates the basic rules.
• Introduction to Basic Legal Citation (Online) Peter W. Martin Cornell Legal Information Institute, 2017. Free online resource. Includes a thorough review of the relevant rules of appellate practice of federal and state courts. It takes account of the latest edition of The Bluebook, published in 2015, and provides a correlation table between this free online citation guide and the Bluebook.
• Last Updated: Oct 24, 2019 11:00 AM
• URL: https://law.indiana.libguides.com/dissertationguide

Law Library

Writing Academic Papers for Law School

• Substantial Writing Requirement
• How to Find and Narrow Your Topic
• Researching for Your Paper
• Other Support for Substantial Writing

The thesis of your substantial writing paper must meet several requirements:

• It must be original
• It must take a position, advance an argument, or propose a solution
• It must be concrete, identifiable, and manageable
• It must be novel, useful, nonobvious, and sound

Your approach to the topic may be descriptive, prescriptive, or both.

You should also do a preemption check on your thesis, which means you make sure no one else has argued your exact same thesis/argument. You research the key terms of your thesis to make sure that no scholarly work comes up in your list of results with the same thesis.

Types of Theses

Most law review theses fit into three main categories: proposing a solution to a legal problem, bringing an interdisciplinary idea into the law, and comparing two or more legal ideas.

Common Arguments

A law review thesis will usually engage in one or more common types of arguments. These may include:

• an argument from precedent,
• an interpretive argument,
• a normative argument, or
• an institutional argument.

For more information about these types of arguments, see Elizabeth Fajans & Mary R. Falk, Scholarly Writing for Law Students 37-38 (5th ed. 2017).

Solution Theses

There are a few helpful ways to think about generating a solution as your thesis.

• This type of thesis might transfer a solution from one area to a new area.
• It might re-categorize claims and facts that have been made elsewhere.
• It might challenge assumptions about an area of law.
• It might extend or modify an existing theory or doctrine.
• It might borrow distinct legal principles to respond to new events.
• It might use analogy and metaphor.

For more information, see Elizabeth Fajans & Mary R. Falk, Scholarly Writing for Law Students 55-56 (5th ed. 2017).

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Tips to write a great master thesis (in law)

The below text has not been heavily edited. Take it as a transcript of the above video, not proper writing.

Welcome. My objective with this video is to help you score a good grade for your master’s thesis or a final paper. I have about 30 tips for you. Now, sorry to disappoint you already, but there is no magic. Writing a good master thesis requires very hard work. My tips are intended to help you *if* you are willing to work hard — so you don’t waste your time and effort. In a sense, they are here to channel your energy and goodwill. Now, do not take those tips at face value. I prepared this list based on my personal experience supervising master theses, but of course, feel free to disagree or to apply other methods that work best for you. Importantly, always ask your master thesis supervisor for her or his guidance.

The first subject I want to discuss relates to the substance of your master thesis.  

First , you need to choose a subject that you like . Do not let anyone decide what is the subject you will write about. Also, do not follow trends or what might look like a good subject to score a good grade. Now, that being said, you should also choose a subject that matters, meaning that if you come to some results, those results should be interesting to other people than you.

Two , choose *one* subject only and explore that subject entirely. Do not be too broad. 95% of the time, the initial scope of master theses is too broad. I get it, you want to write a master’s thesis that makes an impact, and, to achieve that, you might be under the impression that you need to tackle a vast subject. But in fact, the way to go is to write about something feasible and to put a concrete proposal on the table — not the other way around. After all, 0 x 10 = 0, while 0 + 1 = 1, isn’t it?!

Three , your research question should be just one easy sentence long . “Easy“ means that your research question should fit on a Word document *single* line and that your fellow classmates should be able to understand what it says.

Fourth , if you are a law student, make your research question legal . Of course, it doesn’t mean that you cannot rely on economic thinking or computer science, but the question you will answer should be legal in nature.

Fifth , you should have one hypothesis , meaning something you think can be true and that you can test. Testing doesn’t mean that you should model your question, but it means that you should be following several steps that will lead you to a proper result. That’s a very important point. A good master thesis is one for which you do not know the answer before you start. It’s one for which you need to build on different steps to get from results to results.

Sixth , in your introduction, you should summarize the state of the literature . Put differently, you should say where research is already providing us with answers and what is the gap in the literature you want to address.

Seventh , once you have your subject, research question, and hypothesis, you need to come up with a concrete plan of action . This means that you need to explain — very precisely — what you’re going to do and how this will lead you to test your hypothesis. If you don’t have such a plan of action, your thesis will be imprecise. In short, you need to go somewhere with your writing instead of walking around your subject.

Okay, we leave the substance now and go to the writing part.

First , sentences, paragraphs, and chapters should build on top of previous ones, meaning they should not be interchangeable. This implies that you need to explain and prove something before moving on to the next step. I know this is hard. And in fact, this is where I see the most struggle when grading master theses. But you should be spending time on the building part and asking yourself the following question: “is the flow of my writing logical?“

Two , when writing, you should ask yourself another question: “ and then what? “ This means two things. First, can you get a step further? And second, does it matter? For example, if you say the Data Act regulates smart contracts, you want to go a step deeper and explain what the regulation does, and also, explain why it matters to understand it.

Three , don’t be descriptive . Usually, the first chapters I receive are descriptive because this is where you started from and you want to include these descriptions to “fill in the space.“ But each paragraph should matter. This means that each paragraph should be absolutely necessary to prove your points. If you can cut out one paragraph without losing the flow of your master thesis, then do it. In concrete terms, chapters that describe the functioning of a specific technology or the inside of a new regulation should be removed. Instead, your explanation should support your overall message at any time, meaning that you *can* explain a technical point, but do it in the context of an argument.

Four , do not use the passive voice (e.g., “the passive shall not be used“). Also, do not use “it.“ And “this.“ And similar undefined words.

Five , most of what you write should not appear in the final version of your master thesis. Good writers eliminate 90% of what they write just to keep the absolute substance. You should reach the stage where you *enjoy* removing paragraphs because you know it makes your writing clear.

Six , start all your paragraphs with a short sentence — less than one line — summarizing the idea of the entire paragraph. Yes, this means that each paragraph should have only one idea. You will see that doing so will actually force you to put your thoughts in order.

Seven , write short sentences .

Eight , a good master thesis has many diverse footnotes . You want to refer to the latest literature, the latest cases. And you want to make sure that you are quoting the most cited articles in your field of research. And you want to avoid having more than two footnotes in a row referring to the same source.

Nine , when you quote a source, always explain why you are quoting it. Put the explanation between brackets, after the reference. And please, also put the page number. For example, do not quote “Brian Arthur, The Nature of Technology: What It Is And How It Evolves (Free Press, 2009)“, but quote, “Brian Arthur, The Nature of Technology: What It Is And How It Evolves, 25 (Free Press, 2009) (making a point that new technologies arose as combinations of other technologies)“. Always do that.

Now, we leave the writing part. I want to give you some concrete tips when it comes to the method .

First , very important: * never * miss deadlines .

Second , pay the greatest attention to your footnotes and language . In fact, in all likelihood, the very first thing that your professor will check out when opening your master’s thesis are footnotes and language. This means that your footnotes must be absolutely perfect. You can usually choose the citation style that you prefer — unless one is imposed by your master’s supervisor — but once you’ve chosen one, you must stick to it. Also, if you know that you would like to publish your master thesis in the form of an article, try to identify which citation style is imposed by the journal that you like, and apply it.

Three , you want to source all of your claims . It’s not because you write on a novel subject that you shouldn’t build on the existing literature. This means that one page without at least a few footnotes is extremely suspicious.

Four , when you read an article, you should take all the good elements out of it so that you *never* have to open it again. This means that you need to copy-paste the good paragraphs and the page number in which they appear.

Five , you need to read *everything* that has been written on your subject. If there’s too much, your subject is too broad. That is why you want your research question to be narrow. I’m afraid there is no way around reading it all. The risks are too big for you to take a chance: if you repeat something that has been said already, your master thesis will be nothing more than a nice summary. And if your supervisor knows about this existing body of research, this is a recipe for failure.

Six , when you read, you must write , take notes. This means that you should start writing on day one. Do not wait until the end of your master thesis to write because it does not work. You should write, write, write.

Seven , once you have read everything and you have taken notes, try to group articles by subjects or ideas. When you do that, you will see that a map for your master thesis will emerge out of the process.

Eight , you want to use Evernote or similar software. The idea is to centralize all the sources that you have found in just one single space. Why? Because first, it allows you to research specific words within all documents that you have found in just one second. And two, it allows you to put your notes next to the sources you have found.

Nine , do not lose time using citation software such as Zotero. This is a controversial statement. But I think that in the context of your master thesis, using such software really is not a good idea. You would need to enter manually all the meta information of the sources you have found (page numbers, publication, etc.) to be able to generate citations. This will amount to a loss of time because you do not want to use the same sources several times.

Ten , start downloading academic articles where they appear in their published form . This way, you will have the right page number that you can cite. HeinOnline is a good one for that. But of course, HeinOnline does not have everything. So you also need to check Google Scholar, Google, SSRN, and other platforms and aggregators.

Eleven , do not think that you can finish chapter one and then write chapter two, and then write chapter three, and so on and so forth. You need to write the first draft of everything , and go back at it over and over again. You need to rewrite, rewrite and rewrite once again.

Twelve , and this is my final point, when you gather the data, for example, a list of cases that you want to analyze, you *must* explain why you have decided not to include more data (such as cases). Put differently, you want to explain why you have selected only those cases, this specific dataset . For example, explain that you have taken all the cases in a specific category. If you have selected cases, explain your methodology. Finally, keep this data in a separate folder because your master thesis supervisor — and, later on, a journal — may want to access the data.

Thank you very much for your interest. Take care of yourself and, if you can, someone else too. Cheers.

Dr. Thibault Schrepel Associate Professor of Law at VU Amsterdam Faculty Affiliate at Stanford University CodeX Center Invited Professor at Sciences Po Paris & Panthéon-Sorbonne

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Support NYU Law

• Writing a Student Note
• Writing Process

The Writing Process

Typical outline of a note.

• Introduction : The Introduction should include a description of the problem, a thesis statement, and a roadmap of the argument to follow.
• Part I : This section should be used to set forth the background information on which the later analysis in your Note will depend. It should be a general and broad review of the important issues relevant to your topic that educates your readers about everything they must know in order to understand your Note. When writing this section, be sure to use language that a reader who is not familiar with your Note topic can easily understand.
• Part II : This section should examine the major cases and statutes that your Note will be analyzing. It will contain the main portion of your analysis of how the law stands. For example, if your topic focuses on a circuit split, Part II is where you would explain the conflicting holdings and rationales. You may also choose to discuss what other commentators have said about your topic and these cases.
• Part III : This section is where you will contribute your own analysis of and views on the topic. You will say why you feel the cases/commentary you analyzed are wrong and what should be done instead. In the case of a circuit split, say which side is better and why. Part III is where you should place your original thoughts and contributions, along with the conclusion of your Note.
• Conclusion : The Conclusion should briefly restate what you have already said. You should not focus too much on this section when preparing this Prospectus.

Tips on Legal Writing—Patrick Garlinger ’09

While some may have a greater facility for language than others, there is nothing natural about good writing. It comes from practice—and from rewriting.

Advice on writing is easily dispensed but difficult to follow. This is largely because writing requires enormous discipline. The following are six basic principles that provide a structure for the writing process. They are not specific to academic writing or to legal writing in particular but may be especially helpful in a law school environment where time to write is a precious commodity. Over the years these guidelines have given me the discipline to start and finish, among other academic texts, a student Note.

Writing is like a muscle: Exercise it regularly.

For most students, the Note is the first experience with publishable academic writing. In college, all-nighters might produce passable term papers, but that approach certainly won’t do here. Nor will exam writing really prepare you for legal academic writing. Instead, good academic writing requires regular practice. Law school does little to assist here, since all too often the periods for working on one’s Note are isolated and scattered due to the time constraints imposed by classes, journal work, clinics, and extra-curricular activities. You may pursue a Directed Research as a way to carve out a block of time dedicated to the note or, alternately, write your note to fulfill the writing requirement of a seminar. Winter break is also a great time to make substantial progress on a first draft. Either way, you should try to work steadily on the Note so as to avoid losing momentum and focus.

Good writing does not come naturally: Read good writers.

While some may have a greater facility for language than others, there is nothing natural about good writing. It comes from practice—and from rewriting. To practice without models of good writing is, however, pointless. You must read other legal writers carefully, for both their analysis and their style. As a starting point, find a few sources that inspire your intellectual juices and, over time, keep adding to the list. Read and analyze how those writers introduce their topic and communicate their thesis. Look carefully at the architecture of their argument, their lexicon and sentence structure. In short, read them as both legal scholars and writers. Emulate (but do not copy, of course). Additionally, you may benefit from style guides that provide specific guidelines for legal writing (e.g., Bryan Garner’s Legal Writing in Plain English ). Avoid legalese. A student note should not read like a law school exam or a brief.

Know your thesis: Say it in a single sentence.

One of the most difficult tasks facing a student writer is finding a topic and narrowing the thesis. The student Note is rather short—and because you need to provide background information for your generalist readers, there is little room for sweeping analysis. As such, you should target a very discrete issue. Yet, in my experience, articulating, not finding, the topic is the most difficult task facing a student writer.

You should be able to state your thesis in one or two sentences at most. Anything longer suggests that the topic too unwieldy for a student note or, more probably, that the writer still has not fully understood the nature of the project. Pith not protraction should be your goal. If you can state your thesis in a single sentence, that clarity and concision will guide you throughout the rest of the writing process, helping to avoid unfortunate meanderings or excess material that is not essential to the argument. Simply put, if you cannot summarize your note in one or two sentences, you don’t have a thesis.

Know your writing mode: Respect your rhythm.

Everyone has a writing mode—when you are most inclined to write and how you go about composing. Some of us are “whittlers.” We write and write and write. Later, we will edit and “whittle” away the excess. We refine our ideas in the process of writing, often repeating the same thoughts in multiple guises until we hit on just the right formulation. Others are “refiners” who write just a few sentences or a paragraph and then revise and polish it to perfection before moving on. Similarly, you may have a natural rhythm when it comes to the time of day when your writing seems to flow most easily. A friend of mine prefers to write in the mornings before she has any tea or coffee, using what I call the “carrot” method of motivation.

Respect your writing style; recognizing how you work is important to maximizing it. It may prove futile to try to write against your natural rhythm. If I try to refine as I write, or if I write in the middle of the afternoon, I find myself producing very little.

Everyone suffers from writer’s block: Switch gears or put it down and rest.

Even when you know your writing mode, writing can be a difficult process; your energy comes in fits and spurts, your love for your topic waxes and wanes. When you hit a road block, change it up. Sometimes very simple changes can give you a boost. When I find myself struggling, I switch fonts, or change the spacing from single to double. Often the effect is just to defamiliarize the text, so you see it differently. If writer’s block still persists and the words elude you, take a break. Sometimes a day or two can make a difference in how the argument reads to you—the logical leaps, grammatical errors or infelicitous word choices will leap off the page.

There is a danger, though, in always caving at the first resistance to writing. Writing is hard work. It requires endurance and persistence. Force yourself to try to write for at least 10-15 minutes. A mentor was fond of saying, “Screw your a-- to the chair and don’t get up.” Like exercise, sometimes the thought of writing is more painful than the actual practice, and once you start, you find it comes more easily than anticipated.

Never fall in love with your own writing: Edit with a vengeance.

This piece of advice is owed to a former mentor who repeated it as a mantra. Whether you are a whittler, a refiner, or somewhere in between, we often fall in love with our own prose, unable to let go of a snappy sentence or an ingenious turn of phrase. Editing is the key to good writing, however, and you cannot be afraid to leave material on the cutting room floor.

Place yourself in the reader’s position and ask yourself if the sentence/paragraph/section is really essential. Because we often think we know what our words mean, we fail to realize that our readers may not find our thoughts to be so crystalline. Defamiliarize your own writing by putting the text away or it may be helpful to print out and proofread in hard copy; words will look different on the page than on the computer screen. Finally, avoid the fetish of the footnote as the last refuge for material that should be cut. It is cliché but true that less is often more.

Additional Resources

• Writing Workshop Video : A September 2008 presentation by Vice Dean Barry Friedman, Professor Florencia Marotta-Wurgler, Patrick Garlinger, ’09, and Ilana Harmati, ’10, on student legal writing.
• Eugene Volokh, Academic Legal Writing: Law Review Articles, Student Notes, and Seminar Papers (2003)
• The Bluebook : the guide to legal citation to use in writing and editing legal scholarship.

© 2024 New York University School of Law. 40 Washington Sq. South, New York, NY 10012.   Tel. (212) 998-6100

Academic Legal Writing

• Introduction
• Defining Your Topic
• Avoiding Preemption
• Substantive Guidelines
• Style guidelines

Composition of the Note

The four parts of a note.

Read the Question

Know your audience.

There are different kinds of academic legal writing and as in all writing, it is imperative to know your audience and their expectations.  Some examples include:

Seminar Papers and Writing Competitions: Here you are responding to a specific assignment.  Read the assignment very carefully and respond to all of the required elements.  Consult with your professor.  If he or she is willing to review drafts make sure to take advantage of this.

Law Reviews:  Review the submission guideline of law reviews you are interested in.  You may want to read over the works published in that journal and take note of the stylistic similarities.  You will probably want to choose a topic of current interest and focus primarily on analysis

Policy Papers: These may be written at the request of a client or employer and so again it is very important that your work cover all requirements set forth and that it matches the tone appropriate to the sponsor.

Bar Journals: Writing for bar journals can be much less format than other academic writing and you may not be allowed to use footnotes.  You are also more likely to succeed with a topic with that has a more immediately practical application.

The Outline and the First Draft

The outline is critical to your scholarly legal writing. .

In your first round of research, you should have generated an outline.  Use the outline to guide your writing.  The introduction should include your thesis and a roadmap of what the reader can expect to see in the rest of the paper. 

The next part of your outline should include the background context for your topic, possibly including a literature review, a statement of the current law, it's background and enforcement. 

The third part will contain you analysis.  Support your thesis and the arguments that back your thesis with evidence.

Finally, your conclusion should summarize your findings.

You may find that you would like to rearrange your outline as you write.  You may find that you would prefer to organize your paper by type of argument or type of evidence or go from the broadest implications of your analysis to narrowest or vice versa.  You can treat your outline as modular and move things around as seems most persuasive to you.

The First Draft . . . . Second Draft . . .  Third . . .

It is not necessary to write your first draft in order.  You can start anywhere in your outline.  If you like, you can begin by rephrasing the notes you made under each topic in your outline.  It can be easier to start from something- even if it is very unpolished than to compose from scratch.

Use your outline to create descriptive section headings for your draft.  This will keep you organized and help your reader follow your thinking.

After your first draft, you will want to revise multiple times.  It may be difficult to pick a point where the first draft becomes the second which becomes the third but it can be useful to create and save explicitly labeled draft numbers in case you need to go back and to better incorporate outside feedback.

• << Previous: Writing
• Next: Style guidelines >>
• Last Updated: Oct 13, 2023 2:29 PM
• URL: https://libguides.law.illinois.edu/academiclegalwriting

Legal Writing

• Choosing a Scholarly Paper Topic

Choosing A Topic: An Introduction

Further reading, sources for topic ideas.

• Conducting a Preemption Check
• Evaluating Information
• Keeping Current
• Publishing Your Scholarly Writing
• Avoiding Plagiarism
• Legal Citation & the Bluebook
• Persuasive Legal Writing
• Transactional Legal Writing
• Litigation Focused Writing
• Legislative Drafting
• Judicial Writing
• ADR Drafting

Picking a topic can be the hardest part of writing a substantial paper or journal note. A good topic will make a claim that is both novel and adds to the discussion in a particular area of law.

The first step in choosing a topic is identifying a legal problem. Among other forms, this problem may be a policy concern, a conflict in the law, a gap in knowledge, or an issue surrounding a new legal development.

The second step for choosing your topic is proposing a solution to the problem, which will be the basis of your argument or thesis.

After crafting your thesis, the third step is conducting a preemption check to ensure that your topic has not been preempted by other writing on the subject. This guide details sources for help in selecting a paper topic available through the Ross-Blakely Law Library, as well as freely available online, and offers insight in how to check whether your paper will add new information to the field of law.

Questions to consider in choosing a paper topic When choosing a topic, it may be helpful to consider what subjects, classes, or activities you already enjoy and whether an appropriate topic can be developed from them.

What classes do you enjoy most in law school? What law school organizations do you belong to and what projects were rewarding or useful? What projects from your summer legal employment were interesting? What news stories have you heard lately that troubled you? What areas of law would you like to practice in?

Heather Meeker,  Stalking the Golden Topic: A Guide to Locating and Selecting Topics for Legal Research Papers , 1996 Utah Law Review 917 (1996) To be published, a paper must be relevant, meaning the overall topic is important enough to have warranted some discussion. But a paper must also add novel information to its field. This article discusses the balancing act of finding something new in a legal field that has already drawn attention.

Eugene Volokh,  "Finding What to Write About (The Claim)" in  Academic Legal Writing: Law Review Articles, Student Notes, Seminar Papers, and Getting on Law Review ,  4th ed. (2010)   Tips for research, writing each section of your article, editing your early drafts, and entering competitions or submitting articles for publication.

A Short & Happy Guide to Advanced Legal Research (Ann Walsh Long, 2022) (West Academic password required off campus) Chapter 7 of this brief volume goes into depth on the process of finding, planning, and writing an extended academic paper on the law similar to what professors produce. It recommends seeking expert guidance on a topic and identifies several fertile sources, including circuit splits, state surveys, and law review symposia. It also provides guidance on the preemption check that helps ensure your written product will be unique and valuable, as well as organizing research, editing, and building credibility with comprehensive footnotes crediting experts in the field.

• Circuit Splits
• Hot Legal Topics
• Legal Podcasts
• Legal News Sources

A good way to generate a topic is to look at how different jurisdictions have treated a particular issue. To do this you can examine splits between the circuit courts, in which federal appellate courts from different jurisdictions have disagreed on an important federal question.

U.S. Law Week: Circuit Splits  (Bloomberg Law password required) U.S. Law Week is published weekly by Bloomberg Law.  It includes information on important cases handed down each week and current legal developments. It also has a monthly "Circuit Splits" Feature.

Resources that focus on the "hot topics" in law can be helpful in identifying issues that have not yet been clearly addressed by the courts or legislature and are ripe for academic commentary.

Bloomberg Law - In Focus Resources   (Bloomberg Law password required) Bloomberg Law's In Focus resources are editorially curated pages that provide access to news, commentary, litigation filings, regulatory developments, and practice tools on emerging issues and other topics of note to legal practitioners.

CRS Reports - "Congressional Court Watcher" The Congressional Research Service is a public policy research institute within the United States Congress, tasked with providing research and analysis on topics related to policymaking. From their website, search for "Congressional Court Watcher" to find weekly updates on appellate decisions that may be of interest to lawmakers.

Resources that track and analyze current events and developments in the legal world, such as blogs, may also provide topic ideas. 

ABA Journal Blawg Directory This comprehensive directory of continually updated law blogs allows browsing by topic, author type, region, and law school.

Justia Blawg Search Justia has a listing of over 6,000 law blogs which have been organized in to 75 categories.

Law Professor Blogs Network This is a centralized website for the network of law professor blogs, which are blogs devoted to particular legal subjects written by law professors.

SCOTUS Blog The Supreme Court of the United States Blog provides comprehensive coverage of the U.S. Supreme Court and a wide-ranging array of resources related to Supreme Court cases.

9th Circuit Blog This blog offers commentary and summaries of cases before the 9th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals.

Arizona Appellate Blog The Arizona Appellate Blog reviews opinions in civil cases from the Arizona Supreme Court and Arizona Court of Appeals.

Global Legal Monitor The Global Legal Monitor is an online publication from the Law Library of Congress covering legal news and developments worldwide. It is updated frequently and draws on information from official national legal publications and reliable press sources.

These podcasts deal with current legal topics and may be useful for keeping current on the law and coming up with an idea for a journal article or seminar paper. For additional legal podcast information, please see the Law Library's Keeping Current: Podcasts guide.

Bloomberg Law Host June Grasso speaks with prominent attorneys and legal scholars, analyzing major legal issues and cases in the news.

Make No Law: The First Amendment Podcast This podcast explores the background of important First Amendment cases and the personalities and history that led to them. Join Ken White, First Amendment litigator and law blogger at Popehat.com, as he interviews some of the people behind America’s most important free speech cases.

Opening Arguments A podcast for people who want to form an opinion about a current legal topic but don’t yet have enough information to do so. It tackles relevant legal arguments and gives you the tools you need to understand the issue. Facts are presented in a neutral manner even though the hosts make their political views no secret.

Stay Tuned with Preet Former U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara breaks down legal topics in the news and engages thought leaders in a podcast about power, policy, and justice.

Bloomberg Law News  (Bloomberg Law password required) The  Subscription & Alert Management  page enables researchers to subscribe to curated newsletters on a variety of subject areas within law and business. 

Law360   (available on campus) Law360 readers may sign up for newsletter alerts of new articles within each Law360 section or materials pertaining to particular law firms by clicking on bell icons and following the prompts. ASU users can access Law360.com while on campus as well as through their Lexis accounts.

Lexis News Directory   (Lexis password required) In the Lexis News Directory, news can be searched by region, by publication type, and by subject.

Westlaw News Directory   (Westlaw password required) From the Westlaw News Directory you can search news by type, by jurisdiction, by topic, and by industry.

• << Previous: Scholarly Legal Writing
• Next: Conducting a Preemption Check >>
• Last Updated: Jun 3, 2024 10:17 AM
• URL: https://libguides.law.asu.edu/legalwriting

• StudentInfo

Legal Research Guides

Law library research guides.

• University Libraries

Tort Law Research Guide: For Students: Academic Legal Writing

• Secondary Sources
• Primary Sources
• For Students: Academic Legal Writing

On This Page

A collection of resources and pointers for writing your scholarly paper..

In this guide:

• Selecting a Topic
• Topic Selection Resources

Preemption Check

• Thesis Statement
• Style & Citation
• Database, website, and resource evaluation 
• Annotated bibliographies 

Take a look at the books below! Helpful titles in the UNM Law Library's collection.

Books in the law library collection: legal composition, the mindful legal writer.

The Science Behind the Art of Legal Writing

Scholarly writing for law students.

How to write scholarly papers for seminars, law reviews and law-review competitions, including a chapter on choosing a topic and developing a thesis.

The Grammar and Writing Handbook for Lawyers

Legal writing for the rewired brain, academic legal writing.

An engaging text that provides practical advice from selecting a topic to negotiating editorial changes, also addresses ethical concerns.

Resources for Academic Student Writing

• Logging your research
• Style & Citation
• Database, Website, and Resource Evaluation
• Annotated bibliographies, Literature reviews
• Translation services

Get Inspired!

• Not sure what you want to write about? Use and subscribe to blogs, legal newsletters and other current awareness sources to identify recent “trending” topics that are too new to have been written about yet.
• Talk to faculty and others in the legal profession who research in areas of interest to you.  They may have ideas that they themselves don't have time to research.
• What has already piqued your interest in readings, conversation, footnotes?
• Think locally and globally: what is of interest to New Mexico? Nationally? Globally?
• Think personally: What about your own experiences?
• Have you identified a problem in a specific area of law?
• Browse legal news sites and blogs e.g. SCOTUSblog.

Narrowing Topic, Finding Issues

• Narrowing usually involves more research.
• Explore the general area/sub area of law as well as doctrinally-connected areas. 
• Look for emerging issues related to the topic.
• Think about who is affected by this subject/issue, what are the implications, and what are potential problems.
• Do quick searches of primary and secondary sources to assess the topic's potential. 
• Is there enough material for you to investigate and evaluate?
• Is the issue just complex enough to justify devoting a semester (or more!) to it? 
• What types of resources would be most appropriate?
• Tip: Find a topic or issue that is large enough to be important and interesting but small enough to be manageable.

Remember to check out the suite of short videos including the video on how to narrow your topic and find issues. We show you exactly how it is done! 

Consult Some Experts:

Topic Selection Resources 

Before a case or statute is discussed in law reviews, it is covered in newspapers, legal newsletters, blogs, or industry magazines and newsletters. Look up legal news using the three major legal research databases. Some legal resources enable you to search for circuit splits or cases of first impression that are worthy of writing about.

• Look for legal developments
• What's a circuit split? When two or more Federal Courts of Appeal rule differently on the same issue, it signals that the area of law is undecided and perhaps the Supreme Court might resolve the issue in the future. Researching circuit splits in your area of study can be a way of finding a topic on which to write your papers.
• Browse recent scholarly publications
• Mine others' topic ideas, including calls for papers and writing competitions
• Talk to people

Current awareness, news, and legal developments

  With each of these resource links below, click on the area of law you want to research, and you can either Boolean search those individual databases or review the featured articles on the home page of that area of law. 

Remember to check out the suite of short videos demo-ing how to select topics. We show you exactly how it is done! 

Legal Blawgs

Both the ABA and Justia websites have blawg directories that researchers can search by subject.  Legal blawgs frequently talk about hot issues and recent decisions and can therefore be a great way to find a topic.

• ABA's Blawg Directory
• Justia's Blawg Search
• Findlaw's Legal Blog Network
• Legal Scholarship: Conferences blog A resource to view current and some past conferences in the field of legal scholarship.

Circuit Split Resources

Need help searching scholarly journals?

Use the UNM Law Library's Finding Journal Articles research guide.

A preemption check is the process of determining whether the topic you are writing about has been substantially covered by someone else in the past.

• Preemption checks look for substantial treatment only - an article on your topic in a legal newspaper or bar journal is not considered notable.
•  Even if a topic has been examined by other authors it may still be a valid choice if you differentiate your paper in some way.

To perform a preemption check, conduct a thorough search of available legal publications:

• Think about your topic in legal terms, and construct a list of terms.
• Best Practice : locate a legal treatise on your topic and use it to identify key terms of art for your topic.
• Use a legal thesaurus, and thesauri from any related disciplines, to identify alternative terms and phrases.
• Best Practice : find a list of the search connectors for each database you use to craft the best possible search.
• Search the law reviews & journals databases in the big three legal research databases (Bloomberg Law, LexisNexis, and Westlaw)
• Search additional full-text law journal databases and indexes as described in the UNM Law Library's Finding Journal Articles research guide.
• Make sure to consult indexes like Legal Source .
• Search  Google Scholar .
• Search the UNM Law Library catalog and books.google.com.
• Check SSRN/Legal Scholarship Network and other legal scholarship repositories for forthcoming scholarship.
• Search American Law Reports for annotations on your topic.  Search  ALRs on LexisNexis  or  ALRs on Westlaw .›
• Use the  Research Guides by Subject from the UNM Law Library (mostly law databases)
• Use the Research Guides by Subject from the UNM University Libraries (many non-law databases)
• Browse the list of databases from UNM University Libraries for non-legal databases (sort by subject)

Remember to check out the suite of videos demo-ing how to consult indexes, search for law reviews and journal articles, search the Law Library catalog, check SSRN, and searching Google Scholar. We show you exactly how it is done! 

Once you select a topic and do your preliminary research, you need to develop a thesis statement.

A thesis statement is the central idea upon which your entire paper will focus and it includes the issue that you will resolve. Some things to keep in mind are:

Thesis : an original and supportable proposition about the subject.

It is not enough to simply identify a problem; you need to try to resolve it.

Narrow your thesis to something manageable.

• If the focus is sufficiently narrow, you will be able to read a lot of material and become an expert in that one area in a relatively short amount of time.
• Sometimes, your initial research will suggest ways to narrow focus.

Develop Your Thesis.

• Find one new point, one new insight, one new way of looking at the law, and organize your entire article around that.
• Probe sources to search for an original thesis: critical reading.
• Write down ideas while you read.

After you identify your thesis, test it.

• If your thesis identifies a problem and proposes a solution, bombard it with hypotheticals to see if the solution works in all its likely applications.

Why document?  

-Documenting makes you deliberate: it forces you to stop and think.

-You are documenting your strategy and your research path so it can be recreated.

-It makes you remember the steps you took.

- It provides you with protection; you've covered yourself and your organization by documenting your careful, thorough research. 

Best Practices: your research log template should include: 

-Date: both of when you are conducting the research; and of incident creating Issue

-Issue: including facts and chronology

-Track your Research: What terms did you use? How did you get to your information? Citations!  Where did you get your

information from?

-Updating: What is the coverage date of the resource you consulted? Is it the correct time coverage?

-At the end of your research session that day/week: document the status of your research: Were more potential issues uncovered? Was the call of the question answered? What is the strength of your authority? Also document citation Info, including potential resources. 

Remember to check out the suite of videos demo-ing how to strategize your research, including logging your research. We show you exactly how it is done! 

Take a look at the books in the box to the left! More helpful titles in the UNM Law Library's collection.

Questions to ask when evaluating a resource: .

• Is it free or do you need a subscription?
• If it charges, does it charge by the search or only for downloading and printing?
• Is there a source that is considered the “official source?”
• Is there bias in the sources selected?
• How far back does it go?
• When was the last time it was updated?
• You can access it today, what about in an hour? Week? etc.
• http://archive.org/web/web.php
• Full-text or not?
• Original content, PDFs, or reformatted?
• Can you boolean search?
• Does it do natural language?
• What are the operators?
• Can you reorganize your results?
• Can you narrow your results?

When Google searching, keep in mind:

• Finding Aid vs. Research Tool - use it when you already have part or all of a citation to locate a known item, or use it to start narrowing down your research.
• Good to use if you know exactly what you need
• Good as a start to help you start limiting your universe
• Where are your results being retrieved from? Triangulate from some other sources to make sure the info is good!
• Results and Relevance
• Popularity vs. meaningful to your research

What is an Annotated Bibliography? What is a Literature Review? 

"An annotated bibliography is a list of citations to books, articles, and documents. Each citation is followed by a brief (approximately 150-word) descriptive and evaluative paragraph, the annotation. The purpose of the annotation is to inform the reader of the relevance, accuracy, and quality of the sources cited" and how the piece of literature is situated within the topic you are researching."

A literature review is more substantive, synthesizing, and critical than an annotated bibliography. It provides "a summary, critical analysis, synthesis, overview of prior work done on a subject, and reveals gaps in extant research." More on constructing a literature review here:  https://www.untdallas.edu/learning/writing/academic-writing/literature-reviews.php

Annotations vs. Abstracts vs. Literature Review

"Abstracts are the purely descriptive summaries often found at the beginning of scholarly journal articles or in periodical indexes. Annotations are descriptive and critical; they expose the author's point of view, clarity and appropriateness of expression, and authority."

The work that goes into constructing an annotated bibliography in many ways is part of the first steps in constructing a good literature review. However, rather than just summarizing each item as you do in an annotated bibliography, you go further in a literature review: you synthesize, compare, and analyze the themes or other aspects across the pieces of literature you've gathered.

Annotated Bibliography: The Process

• Locate books, periodicals, and documents that may contain useful information and ideas on your topic.
• Briefly examine and review the actual items.
• Choose those works that provide a variety of perspectives on your topic.
• Cite the book, article, or document using the appropriate style.
• evaluate the authority or background of the author,
• comment on the intended audience,
• compare or contrast this work with another you have cited, or
• explain how this work illuminates your bibliography topic.

Literature Review: The Process

• Survey the literature in your research area of focus - read, analyze, organize the research that you find and review.
• Summarize, organize and present the literature as part of your analysis.
• Synthesize and group the information into a summary or summaries.
• Critically evaluate the information gathered for gaps, limitations, and further areas of research.

Sample Annotated Bibliography for a Journal Article

"L. J. Waite et. al.,  Nonfamily living and the erosion of traditional family orientations among young adults,  51 Am. Soc. Rev .  5 41-554 (1986). The authors, researchers at the Rand Corporation and Brown University, use data from the National Longitudinal Surveys of Young Women and Young Men to test their hypothesis that nonfamily living by young adults alters their attitudes, values, plans, and expectations, moving them away from their belief in traditional sex roles. They find their hypothesis strongly supported in young females, while the effects were fewer in studies of young males. Increasing the time away from parents before marrying increased individualism, self-sufficiency, and changes in attitudes about families. In contrast, an earlier study by Williams cited below shows no significant gender differences in sex role attitudes as a result of nonfamily living."

Sample Literature Review

To start looking at examples of literature reviews, scroll to the bottom of this UNT Dallas guide .  See also this guide to consider more types of examples when constructing literature reviews (although the examples themselves aren't great).

Cornell University Library's Tutorial on Annotated Bibliographies, at  https://www.library.cornell.edu/research/citation/tutorial  

UNT Dallas, Constructing a Literature Review, at https://www.untdallas.edu/learning/writing/academic-writing/literature-reviews.php

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Paper Topic Selection: International: Academic Legal Writing

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Directed Research Projects

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• Preparing to Research
• The Research Process

Structuring Your Paper

Writing tips, writing resources.

• Checking your Sources
• Getting it Published

There is no strict structure to writing a legal research paper.  Unlike legal memos written for class or documents prepared for court proceedings that require formatted headings such as "Question Presented," "Statement of Facts," etc., legal research papers are not required to contain prescribed content or abide by a particular structure.

That said, below is a typical approach to organizing the content of your research project.

• Introduction (clear statement of your thesis)
• Background information (what is the existing law, if any)
• The problem (explain why the status quo does't work)
• Recommendation for change (what can be done to improve the field and how)
• Conclusion (tie back to your thesis)

If you have any questions about formatting your research project, you should seek advice from your faculty advisor.  Below are some basic guidelines, but keep in mind formatting requirements set forth by your faculty advisor will always supersede instructions provided here.

Generally, directed research papers are formatted as follows:

• 12-point font (Times New Roman or similar)
• Double-spaced lines
• One-inch margins on both sides, top, and bottom
• 10-point font for footnotes (same font as text)
• Bluebook style and rules for all footnotes citations
• Roman numerals and/or letter headings and subheadings (same font as text but bolded and/or underlined)
• Numbered pages in the footer (same font as text)

Table of Contents

Although not required (unless your faculty advisor states otherwise), a table of contents can be helpful to provide your reader with an overview of your research paper and direct them to certain sections.  Your table of contents should mirror your headings and subheadings.  Below is an example of a table of contents.

When to Cite

You must include a citation every time you refer to, paraphrase, or quote a law, case, or another's work.  Most of your sentences will include a citation.  Additionally, when you cite to a law, always cite to the primary source.

How to Cite

The Bluebook, formally titled  The Bluebook: A Uniform System of Citation , is the style manual for citing to legal documents within the United States.  You should use the Bluebook for all your citations in your legal paper.  The white page section contain the citation rules for legal academic publications.

Writing a Strong Introduction

Your introduction is arguably the most important section of your paper because many people will decide to continue reading based on the introduction.  It must grab the reader's attention and explain why what you are writing about is important.

Essentially, the reader should be able to skim the rest of your paper after reading your introduction and have a good understanding of its layout and arguments.  A good introduction should present the theme of the paper in a succinct manner while providing an overview of your paper.

Generally, a strong introduction will

• State the legal problem/issue;
• Describe why it is important and how your paper contributes to the discussion;
• Provide a road map of your paper; and
• State your conclusion.

Being Objective & Subjective

After your introduction, you should discuss background information on the issue you chose to write about.  This should be an objective overview of the relevant facts and existing law.  Your objective background information section should not be an all encompassing.  Keep this portion of your paper focused on the essential law and relevant facts that support your recommendation for change. 

The bulk of your paper lays in your discussion of the problem and recommendation for change.  This is the subjective portion of your paper.  In this section you should extract the relevant objective material to support your subjective analysis.

Writing a Strong Conclusion

Your conclusion should restate your thesis, summarize your major points, and remind the reader why the issue you've chosen is important.  The conclusion should essentially reword your introduction in a condensed fashion. 

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In this section

How to write a PhD thesis: a step-by-step guide

A draft isn’t a perfect, finished product; it is your opportunity to start getting words down on paper, writes Kelly Louise Preece

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Congratulations; you’ve finished your research! Time to write your PhD thesis. This resource will take you through an eight-step plan for drafting your chapters and your thesis as a whole. 

Organise your material

Before you start, it’s important to get organised. Take a step back and look at the data you have, then reorganise your research. Which parts of it are central to your thesis and which bits need putting to one side? Label and organise everything using logical folders – make it easy for yourself! Academic and blogger Pat Thomson calls this  “Clean up to get clearer” . Thomson suggests these questions to ask yourself before you start writing:

• What data do you have? You might find it useful to write out a list of types of data (your supervisor will find this list useful too.) This list is also an audit document that can go in your thesis. Do you have any for the “cutting room floor”? Take a deep breath and put it in a separate non-thesis file. You can easily retrieve it if it turns out you need it.
• What do you have already written? What chunks of material have you written so far that could form the basis of pieces of the thesis text? They will most likely need to be revised but they are useful starting points. Do you have any holding text? That is material you already know has to be rewritten but contains information that will be the basis of a new piece of text.
• What have you read and what do you still need to read? Are there new texts that you need to consult now after your analysis? What readings can you now put to one side, knowing that they aren’t useful for this thesis – although they might be useful at another time?
• What goes with what? Can you create chunks or themes of materials that are going to form the basis of some chunks of your text, perhaps even chapters?

Once you have assessed and sorted what you have collected and generated you will be in much better shape to approach the big task of composing the dissertation. 

Decide on a key message

A key message is a summary of new information communicated in your thesis. You should have started to map this out already in the section on argument and contribution – an overarching argument with building blocks that you will flesh out in individual chapters.

You have already mapped your argument visually, now you need to begin writing it in prose. Following another of Pat Thomson’s exercises, write a “tiny text” thesis abstract. This doesn’t have to be elegant, or indeed the finished product, but it will help you articulate the argument you want your thesis to make. You create a tiny text using a five-paragraph structure:

• The first sentence addresses the broad context. This locates the study in a policy, practice or research field.
• The second sentence establishes a problem related to the broad context you have set out. It often starts with “But”, “Yet” or “However”.
• The third sentence says what specific research has been done. This often starts with “This research” or “I report…”
• The fourth sentence reports the results. Don’t try to be too tricky here, just start with something like: “This study shows,” or “Analysis of the data suggests that…”
• The fifth and final sentence addresses the “So What?” question and makes clear the claim to contribution.

Here’s an example that Thomson provides:

Secondary school arts are in trouble, as the fall in enrolments in arts subjects dramatically attests. However, there is patchy evidence about the benefits of studying arts subjects at school and this makes it hard to argue why the drop in arts enrolments matters. This thesis reports on research which attempts to provide some answers to this problem – a longitudinal study which followed two groups of senior secondary students, one group enrolled in arts subjects and the other not, for three years. The results of the study demonstrate the benefits of young people’s engagement in arts activities, both in and out of school, as well as the connections between the two. The study not only adds to what is known about the benefits of both formal and informal arts education but also provides robust evidence for policymakers and practitioners arguing for the benefits of the arts. You can  find out more about tiny texts and thesis abstracts on Thomson’s blog.

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Write a plan

You might not be a planner when it comes to writing. You might prefer to sit, type and think through ideas as you go. That’s OK. Everybody works differently. But one of the benefits of planning your writing is that your plan can help you when you get stuck. It can help with writer’s block (more on this shortly!) but also maintain clarity of intention and purpose in your writing.

You can do this by creating a  thesis skeleton or storyboard , planning the order of your chapters, thinking of potential titles (which may change at a later stage), noting down what each chapter/section will cover and considering how many words you will dedicate to each chapter (make sure the total doesn’t exceed the maximum word limit allowed).

Use your plan to help prompt your writing when you get stuck and to develop clarity in your writing.

Some starting points include:

• This chapter will argue that…
• This section illustrates that…
• This paragraph provides evidence that…

Of course, we wish it werethat easy. But you need to approach your first draft as exactly that: a draft. It isn’t a perfect, finished product; it is your opportunity to start getting words down on paper. Start with whichever chapter you feel you want to write first; you don’t necessarily have to write the introduction first. Depending on your research, you may find it easier to begin with your empirical/data chapters.

Vitae advocates for the “three draft approach” to help with this and to stop you from focusing on finding exactly the right word or transition as part of your first draft.

This resource originally appeared on Researcher Development .

Kelly Louse Preece is head of educator development at the University of Exeter.

If you would like advice and insight from academics and university staff delivered direct to your inbox each week, sign up for the Campus newsletter .

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All Concentration students must satisfy the Concentration's legal writing requirement in one of the following manners:

• With a paper which meets the standards of the Law School's legal writing requirement, and has been written for an approved Business Law and Financial Services Concentration or Business Law course or as part of a Directed Study project with a full time faculty member; OR
• With a law journal piece or moot court brief whose subject matter comes within the scope of a Concentration course, and has been approved by the Faculty Director of the Concentration; OR
• With a Concentration Thesis which has been written under the supervision of a full time faculty member on a business law or financial services topic, and has been approved by the Faculty Director of the Concentration.
• Students who are enrolled in the Business Law and Financial Services Concentration or Business Law Concentration may opt to write a Thesis. (Alternatively, students may choose to satisfy their Concentration's legal writing requirement by meeting the Law School's Legal Writing Requirement in connection with an approved Concentration course.)
• Students who choose the Thesis option must write a Thesis of publishable quality, supervised and approved by a resident faculty member.
• The standards applied to the Thesis are beyond those applied to satisfaction of the Law School's legal writing requirement, and are determined by the supervising resident faculty member.
• If a Thesis fails to meet the standard applied by the supervising resident faculty member, the course will be changed from a Thesis to a Directed Study on the student’s transcript.
• The Thesis must be completed by the time of graduation, but arrangements for faculty supervision and topic approval, as well as significant work on the project, should be initiated at least two semesters before anticipated graduation.
• Thesis topics must relate to the area of Concentration, and must be approved by the Concentration Faculty Director(s) and the supervising resident faculty member.
• Students who complete a Thesis to the satisfaction of their supervising resident faculty member are eligible to receive their Concentration with distinction, as long as all other Concentration requirements are met.
• The Thesis is taken for two (2) credits and may be either graded or taken pass/fail, at the student’s election. Students who elect to write a Concentration Thesis may not also receive credit in the same semester for honor board credit, a Directed Study, Research Assistantship, or participation on a moot court team.

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Methodology

• How to Write a Literature Review | Guide, Examples, & Templates

How to Write a Literature Review | Guide, Examples, & Templates

Published on January 2, 2023 by Shona McCombes . Revised on September 11, 2023.

What is a literature review? A literature review is a survey of scholarly sources on a specific topic. It provides an overview of current knowledge, allowing you to identify relevant theories, methods, and gaps in the existing research that you can later apply to your paper, thesis, or dissertation topic .

There are five key steps to writing a literature review:

• Search for relevant literature
• Evaluate sources
• Identify themes, debates, and gaps
• Outline the structure
• Write your literature review

A good literature review doesn’t just summarize sources—it analyzes, synthesizes , and critically evaluates to give a clear picture of the state of knowledge on the subject.

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Table of contents

What is the purpose of a literature review, examples of literature reviews, step 1 – search for relevant literature, step 2 – evaluate and select sources, step 3 – identify themes, debates, and gaps, step 4 – outline your literature review’s structure, step 5 – write your literature review, free lecture slides, other interesting articles, frequently asked questions, introduction.

• Quick Run-through
• Step 1 & 2

When you write a thesis , dissertation , or research paper , you will likely have to conduct a literature review to situate your research within existing knowledge. The literature review gives you a chance to:

• Demonstrate your familiarity with the topic and its scholarly context
• Develop a theoretical framework and methodology for your research
• Position your work in relation to other researchers and theorists
• Show how your research addresses a gap or contributes to a debate
• Evaluate the current state of research and demonstrate your knowledge of the scholarly debates around your topic.

Writing literature reviews is a particularly important skill if you want to apply for graduate school or pursue a career in research. We’ve written a step-by-step guide that you can follow below.

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Writing literature reviews can be quite challenging! A good starting point could be to look at some examples, depending on what kind of literature review you’d like to write.

• Example literature review #1: “Why Do People Migrate? A Review of the Theoretical Literature” ( Theoretical literature review about the development of economic migration theory from the 1950s to today.)
• Example literature review #2: “Literature review as a research methodology: An overview and guidelines” ( Methodological literature review about interdisciplinary knowledge acquisition and production.)
• Example literature review #3: “The Use of Technology in English Language Learning: A Literature Review” ( Thematic literature review about the effects of technology on language acquisition.)
• Example literature review #4: “Learners’ Listening Comprehension Difficulties in English Language Learning: A Literature Review” ( Chronological literature review about how the concept of listening skills has changed over time.)

You can also check out our templates with literature review examples and sample outlines at the links below.

Download Word doc Download Google doc

Before you begin searching for literature, you need a clearly defined topic .

If you are writing the literature review section of a dissertation or research paper, you will search for literature related to your research problem and questions .

Make a list of keywords

Start by creating a list of keywords related to your research question. Include each of the key concepts or variables you’re interested in, and list any synonyms and related terms. You can add to this list as you discover new keywords in the process of your literature search.

• Social media, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat, TikTok
• Body image, self-perception, self-esteem, mental health
• Generation Z, teenagers, adolescents, youth

Search for relevant sources

Use your keywords to begin searching for sources. Some useful databases to search for journals and articles include:

• Your university’s library catalogue
• Google Scholar
• Project Muse (humanities and social sciences)
• Medline (life sciences and biomedicine)
• EconLit (economics)
• Inspec (physics, engineering and computer science)

You can also use boolean operators to help narrow down your search.

Make sure to read the abstract to find out whether an article is relevant to your question. When you find a useful book or article, you can check the bibliography to find other relevant sources.

You likely won’t be able to read absolutely everything that has been written on your topic, so it will be necessary to evaluate which sources are most relevant to your research question.

For each publication, ask yourself:

• What question or problem is the author addressing?
• What are the key concepts and how are they defined?
• What are the key theories, models, and methods?
• Does the research use established frameworks or take an innovative approach?
• What are the results and conclusions of the study?
• How does the publication relate to other literature in the field? Does it confirm, add to, or challenge established knowledge?
• What are the strengths and weaknesses of the research?

Make sure the sources you use are credible , and make sure you read any landmark studies and major theories in your field of research.

You can use our template to summarize and evaluate sources you’re thinking about using. Click on either button below to download.

Take notes and cite your sources

As you read, you should also begin the writing process. Take notes that you can later incorporate into the text of your literature review.

It is important to keep track of your sources with citations to avoid plagiarism . It can be helpful to make an annotated bibliography , where you compile full citation information and write a paragraph of summary and analysis for each source. This helps you remember what you read and saves time later in the process.

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To begin organizing your literature review’s argument and structure, be sure you understand the connections and relationships between the sources you’ve read. Based on your reading and notes, you can look for:

• Trends and patterns (in theory, method or results): do certain approaches become more or less popular over time?
• Themes: what questions or concepts recur across the literature?
• Debates, conflicts and contradictions: where do sources disagree?
• Pivotal publications: are there any influential theories or studies that changed the direction of the field?
• Gaps: what is missing from the literature? Are there weaknesses that need to be addressed?

This step will help you work out the structure of your literature review and (if applicable) show how your own research will contribute to existing knowledge.

• Most research has focused on young women.
• There is an increasing interest in the visual aspects of social media.
• But there is still a lack of robust research on highly visual platforms like Instagram and Snapchat—this is a gap that you could address in your own research.

There are various approaches to organizing the body of a literature review. Depending on the length of your literature review, you can combine several of these strategies (for example, your overall structure might be thematic, but each theme is discussed chronologically).

Chronological

The simplest approach is to trace the development of the topic over time. However, if you choose this strategy, be careful to avoid simply listing and summarizing sources in order.

Try to analyze patterns, turning points and key debates that have shaped the direction of the field. Give your interpretation of how and why certain developments occurred.

If you have found some recurring central themes, you can organize your literature review into subsections that address different aspects of the topic.

For example, if you are reviewing literature about inequalities in migrant health outcomes, key themes might include healthcare policy, language barriers, cultural attitudes, legal status, and economic access.

Methodological

If you draw your sources from different disciplines or fields that use a variety of research methods , you might want to compare the results and conclusions that emerge from different approaches. For example:

• Look at what results have emerged in qualitative versus quantitative research
• Discuss how the topic has been approached by empirical versus theoretical scholarship
• Divide the literature into sociological, historical, and cultural sources

Theoretical

A literature review is often the foundation for a theoretical framework . You can use it to discuss various theories, models, and definitions of key concepts.

You might argue for the relevance of a specific theoretical approach, or combine various theoretical concepts to create a framework for your research.

Like any other academic text , your literature review should have an introduction , a main body, and a conclusion . What you include in each depends on the objective of your literature review.

The introduction should clearly establish the focus and purpose of the literature review.

Depending on the length of your literature review, you might want to divide the body into subsections. You can use a subheading for each theme, time period, or methodological approach.

As you write, you can follow these tips:

• Summarize and synthesize: give an overview of the main points of each source and combine them into a coherent whole
• Analyze and interpret: don’t just paraphrase other researchers — add your own interpretations where possible, discussing the significance of findings in relation to the literature as a whole
• Critically evaluate: mention the strengths and weaknesses of your sources
• Write in well-structured paragraphs: use transition words and topic sentences to draw connections, comparisons and contrasts

In the conclusion, you should summarize the key findings you have taken from the literature and emphasize their significance.

When you’ve finished writing and revising your literature review, don’t forget to proofread thoroughly before submitting. Not a language expert? Check out Scribbr’s professional proofreading services !

This article has been adapted into lecture slides that you can use to teach your students about writing a literature review.

Scribbr slides are free to use, customize, and distribute for educational purposes.

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If you want to know more about the research process , methodology , research bias , or statistics , make sure to check out some of our other articles with explanations and examples.

• Sampling methods
• Simple random sampling
• Stratified sampling
• Cluster sampling
• Likert scales
• Reproducibility

 Statistics

• Null hypothesis
• Statistical power
• Probability distribution
• Effect size
• Poisson distribution

Research bias

• Optimism bias
• Cognitive bias
• Implicit bias
• Hawthorne effect
• Anchoring bias
• Explicit bias

A literature review is a survey of scholarly sources (such as books, journal articles, and theses) related to a specific topic or research question .

It is often written as part of a thesis, dissertation , or research paper , in order to situate your work in relation to existing knowledge.

There are several reasons to conduct a literature review at the beginning of a research project:

• To familiarize yourself with the current state of knowledge on your topic
• To ensure that you’re not just repeating what others have already done
• To identify gaps in knowledge and unresolved problems that your research can address
• To develop your theoretical framework and methodology
• To provide an overview of the key findings and debates on the topic

Writing the literature review shows your reader how your work relates to existing research and what new insights it will contribute.

The literature review usually comes near the beginning of your thesis or dissertation . After the introduction , it grounds your research in a scholarly field and leads directly to your theoretical framework or methodology .

A literature review is a survey of credible sources on a topic, often used in dissertations , theses, and research papers . Literature reviews give an overview of knowledge on a subject, helping you identify relevant theories and methods, as well as gaps in existing research. Literature reviews are set up similarly to other  academic texts , with an introduction , a main body, and a conclusion .

An  annotated bibliography is a list of  source references that has a short description (called an annotation ) for each of the sources. It is often assigned as part of the research process for a  paper .  

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Events Calendar

Eric Martinez Thesis Defense: The Cognitive Underpinnings of Legal Complexity

Thursday, June 13, 2024 at 1:00pm

Building 46, McGovern Seminar Room 46-3189 43 VASSAR ST, Cambridge, MA 02139

Date/Time: June 13th, 1pm

In-person location: McGovern Seminar Room 46-3189 

Zoom link:  https://mit.zoom.us/j/98439520717

Defense Title: The Cognitive Underpinnings of Legal Complexity

Defense Abstract: Across modern civilization, societal norms and rules are codified and communicated largely in the form of written laws. Although principles of communicative efficiency and legal doctrine dictate that laws be comprehensible to the common world, legal documents have long been attested to be largely incomprehensible to those who are required to comply with them (i.e. everyone). Why? This thesis sets out to answer this question using the tools of cognitive science.

Chapter II approaches the question from the comprehender side, documenting the cognitive and linguistic factors that make legal documents difficult to understand for non-lawyers. We find that legal contracts are laden with psycholinguistically complex structures at a strikingly higher rate than nine baseline genres of English, and that contracts written with these features are more difficult to understand and recall than contracts of equivalent meaning without those features. This work further reveals that center-embedded syntax inhibits recall and comprehension of legal content more than other features, suggesting that such processing difficulties result largely from working-memory limitations imposed by long-distance syntactic dependencies as opposed to a mere lack of specialized legal knowledge. Chapter III extends these results to other legal genres and investigates the cognitive and linguistic profile of law over time. Analyzing every law passed by congress between 1951 and 2022 with matched texts from four different genres, we find that laws have and continue to be disproportionately laden with psycholinguistically complex structures relative to baseline genres of English, suggesting that top-down efforts to simplify legal texts over this period have largely failed. Chapters IV and V turn to the producer side, investigating why legal actors write in a complex manner in the first place. We find that lawyers likewise struggle to recall and comprehend legal content drafted in a complex register and prefer simplified legal documents to complex documents across virtually every dimension. We further find that people tasked with writing official laws write in a more convoluted manner than when tasked with writing unofficial legal texts of equivalent conceptual complexity, whereas people editing a legal document do not write in a more convoluted manner than when writing from scratch. From a cognitive perspective, these results suggest law to be a rare exception to the general tendency in human language towards communicative efficiency. In particular, these results indicate law's complexity to be derived from its performativity, whereby low-frequency structures may be inserted to signal law’s authoritative, world-state-altering nature, at the cost of increased processing demands on readers. From a legal perspective, these findings call into question the coherence and legitimacy of legal principles whose validity rests on the notion of law being comprehensible to laypeople. From a policy perspective, this work informs long-standing efforts to simplify legal documents for the public at-large, which, despite bipartisan support, have remained largely intractable. Finally, from a field-building perspective, this thesis lays the foundation for a broader interdisciplinary research program that uses insights from cognitive science to inform long-standing and cutting-edge questions of legal doctrine and policy.

Thesis defense

School of Science

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